Chapter 16

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Jeremy Owen's bedroom was a shrine to testosterone and football. The spacious bedroom suite was filled with NY Giants paraphernalia, sports equipment and sport trophies. From his flannel curtains to his corduroy bedspread the room didn't leave any doubt that the occupant of the room was of the 'Y' chromosome.

Sam wandered around the room looking for anything that might seem out of place or of the highly personal nature that might give an indication of what Jeremy Owen was all about.

"Whaddy'a wanna bet this is exactly what Martin's bedroom looked like when he was a kid." Danny joked as he sat at Jeremy's desk with James, the tech, scanning through his computer files.

Sam hummed her reply and walked up to the bookshelf. Scanning the titles she saw several books on sports legends along with ubiquitous novels like Great Expectations, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Catcher in the Rye. There were some larger books at the bottom of the bookshelf. Looking closer Sam saw they were books of maps of the world. Wondering if maybe Jeremy had a wandering spirit, Sam pulled one of them off the shelf and opened it up but rather than maps, out fell issues of Playboy and Penthouse.

"Hey, what do you have there?" Sam turned to find Danny smirking and walking to where she stood.

"Apparently it's Jeremy's version of light reading." Sam replied as she handed a few issues to Danny who didn't waste a moment perusing the magazines in typical male fashion. She noticed that Danny was glancing through them with a perplexed look on his face. "What? Are the women not to your liking?"

"No…" Danny began, "It's just….they're in pristine condition."

Sam shrugged and said, "Maybe Jeremy takes good care of his stuff."

Danny shook his head, "I don't care how neat a guy is, there is no way you can keep a girly mag looking this new unless you never looked at them."

"Well, maybe they are new." Sam flipped one of the magazines over and the issue she held was dated June 2004, more than a year old. "Then again, maybe not."

Danny knelt down in front of the bookcase and began going through the other books. In each book it was the same thing, but when he came to the final book out came some weathered issues of Hustler and Penthouse.

"Maybe he just has his favorite issues?" Sam guessed.

Danny opened them up and flipped through them. He'd stop at certain pages that looked like they got the most attention and then continued on. "I think I may have discovered a little secret about our boy."

"What?"

"I think Jeremy might be gay."

"What do you mean? These are all men's magazines of nude women."

"Yeah, but all the centerfolds are shiny and new." Sam just looked at him and nodded, still unsure of what it meant. "Sam, centerfolds are the reason you buy these things. I can still tell you the name of my first centerfold was Phoebe Lewis. That's how important they are to young guys."

Sam raised an eyebrow and continued looking at him waiting to get an explanation. "Okay, good for you. I still don't get how you think he is gay?"

Danny huffed, "Okay, check out these magazines." Danny opened up an issue of Penthouse. "These pages, of these very hot women, are crisp and relatively new."

Sam nodded as Danny pointed out images of buxom brunettes and blondes, with heavy makeup and pouting lips attempting to be provocative in completely absurd settings.

"Now skipping ahead, here's another picture that, by the looks of it, Jeremy visited quite often." The image was of a brunette in a highly sexed up pose lying back as an undressed and 'at-attention' male hovered behind her. "Look, the edges are worn and even dog-eared it. See?"

Sam shook her head with frustration trying to comprehend what he was seeing that caused him to believe Jeremy was gay.

"C'mon Sam, what's the biggest difference between the images?"

Sam studying them before shaking her head and saying, "I don't see what the difference is."

Danny growled in frustration. "There's a guy! In each picture that Jeremy seemed to show interest in there's a guy in the picture."

"Oh. Maybe he just prefers seeing acts of sex rather than a woman just lying around in ridiculous poses. It doesn't mean he's gay."

Danny responded with a very loud audible sigh proclaiming, "Man, I wish Martin was here. He'd get it." Danny grabbed the magazines back from Sam and put them in the evidence box.

"I can't even imagine Martin looking at those." Sam said. While Martin was very talented in the bedroom he just didn't strike her as the kind of guy to find those kinds of magazines provocative. He was too clean cut. Sure, he made the 'sex tape' comment, and while it surprised her, deep down she knew that he'd never actually want to make one. It was a joke. Wasn't it?

Danny laughed and said, "He's a guy. I'll bet you twenty bucks he can still remember the name of his first centerfold."

"I'm not betting you." Sam responded curtly.

Danny leaned in towards her and said, "That's cuz you know I'm right."

Sam shrugged him off and turned her attention to James. "Any luck finding anything on his computer?"

James looked over at where they stood and said, "This kid's got all the very best firewalls up. It'd be easier if I could take this back to the tech lab."

Danny nodded his head and said, "Pack it up then. Something tells me that this kid has those firewalls up for a reason." He turned to Sam and said, "This family is just full of secrets."